Bird Streets Take Flight with Northeast, Midwest Tour Dates Supporting New Album

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — NPR Music Slingshot is a program with NPR and VuHaus with tastemaker radio stations across the country including WFUV, WGBH, WXPN and KCRW “to elevate exceptional emerging artists.” This year Bird Streets was included in the program. They will take to the road this December to promote his critically acclaimed self-titled LP. The 10-day tour begins December 7 in Albany, N.Y., and wraps up December 16 in Detroit. 
 
Bird Streets is the alias of Brooklyn-based songwriter and musician John Brodeur. Comprising his touring band for the December dates are guitarist Lisa Bianco (Hunter Valentine, It Was Romance), bassist Mark Connor (SOON A.D., S.E. Ward, John Howie Jr.), and drummer Tim Kuhl (Margaret Glaspy, The Ghost of a Saber-Toothed Tiger). They’ll play a live Daytrotter video session on Wednesday, December 12. ​

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It’s been a busy fall for Brodeur and company since the August release of Bird Streets on Omnivore Recordings. Produced by power-pop cult hero Jason Falkner (Beck, Jellyfish, Daniel Johnston), the 11-song collection has garnered enthusiastic reviews from AllMusic, Albumism, Blurt and PopMatters, among others. The lead single, “Betting on the Sun,” has been added to rotation at AAA/non-commercial radio stations nationwide, including tastemakers KCRW, WFUV and WXPN; its corresponding surreal music-video is online now. And the album’s first video, “Direction,” has racked up more than 10k combined views. Brodeur was recently featured as a guest editor for Magnet Magazine at http://bit.ly/2OI1wEo
 
“I used to write about finding ways out of the darkness,” says Brodeur. “Now I’m more interested in exploring and creating a map of that place. In some ways, adopting the Bird Streets name allowed me to write more openly about myself.”
 
In need of a creative rebirth after years on the music-industry margins, Brodeur reached out to producer and multi-instrumentalist Falkner to suggest a collaboration. The album yielded by this pairing is both fresh and familiar — a dynamic collection of introspective indie-rock and power-pop that draws liberally on the music of decades past without being bluntly nostalgic, with Brodeur’s voice like an old friend you’re meeting for the first time.
 
Over a career that’s spanned nearly 20 years, Brodeur has independently produced and released several solo albums, including 2013’s Little Hopes; fronted rock trios the Suggestions and Maggie Mayday; and worked as a touring and studio musician for scores of acts, including the Morning After Girls, Freedy Johnston, and White Hills. This is his first recording under the Bird Streets name.
 
The name springs from a tony real-estate enclave in the Hollywood Hills, which Brodeur first discovered when the recording sessions were first getting underway — but also references Brodeur’s one-time hometown of Albany, N.Y., which provided the characters and inspiration for some of the album’s 11 songs.
 
Recorded at Falkner’s Los Angeles studio between 2014 and 2016, Bird Streets is the product of equal measures tenacity and patience. After a series of setbacks derailed touring plans for his last solo album, Brodeur decamped to L.A., waiting for a hole to open in Falkner’s schedule. Once they were in the studio, the kindred creative spirits hit it off immediately. Working during the short gaps between Falkner’s touring and production commitments, with Brodeur shuffling between coasts for studio dates, the pair moved quickly, arranging and tracking entire songs in a day or two, sharing instrumental duties throughout.
 
Lyrically, these songs draw heavily on internal conflict with an overarching feeling of wistful resignation rather than blind optimism. Difficult themes are delivered via unshakable melodies, a dichotomy that recalls the tightrope walked by artists like Elliott Smith and David Bazan. In album opener “Carry Me,” Brodeur celebrates “new beginnings and bitter ends” over a bright, bristling bed of electric guitars, then laments a relationship that was once “tighter than Steely Dan” in the eminently catchy “Betting on the Sun.” Musically, the album jumps from epic power-ballads (“Stop to Breathe”) to British Invasion-flavored power-pop (“Thanks for Calling”), the George Harrison-via-Radiohead melancholy of “Heal” to the grungy jangle of “Until the Crown.”
 
Now, after years in the making — and decades on the outside looking in — Bird Streets is giving Brodeur a renewed creative energy, and a shot at reaching a larger audience. 
 
Tour dates:
Tue. Nov. 20  LOS ANGELES, CA Hotel Café
Mon. Nov. 26  NEW HAVEN, CT Cafe Nine *
Wed. Nov. 28  NEW YORK, NY  Rockwood Music Hall *
Fri. Dec. 7  ALBANY, NY The Hollow
Sun. Dec. 9  WASHINGTON, DC Songbyrd Vinyl Lounge
Mon. Dec. 10 COLUMBUS, OH Tree Bar
Tue. Dec. 11   ST. LOUIS, MO Ready Room
Wed. Dec. 12  DAVENPORT, IA Raccoon Motel
Thu. Dec. 13  MILWAUKEE, WI Cactus Club
Fri. Dec. 14  MINNEAPOLIS, MN 7th Street Entry
Sat. Dec. 15   CHICAGO, IL Moe’s Tavern
Sun. Dec. 16  DETROIT, MI Outer Limits Lounge
 
*  solo date, supporting Leeds